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Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by johnydon22(m): 11:29pm On May 19, 2016
Have you ever looked up in the night sky seeing the stars littered all over, small twinkling lights far far away.

These stars are so far away from each other that it takes years for light to travel between them.

All the stars you see at night are part of the milky way galaxy, even you yourself, the sun, planets.

So when ever you are looking at the night sky, the sun, moon, planets, other things or people around you, You are indirectly looking at the Milky Way Galaxy..

What is a galaxy?

A galaxy is a cluster of stars, clouds, dust, planets, dark matters all held
together by the reaching arms of gravity....


Read more about galaxies here ==> Galaxies



Now let us run through Facts about our own Home Galaxy the milky way galaxy ..

Sources (Picture credits): Nasa.gov
www.universetoday.com
twitter: @Hubble_telescope

17 Likes 6 Shares

Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by johnydon22(m): 11:41pm On May 19, 2016
1 out of billions

Yeah that is correct, Our milky way galaxy is not the only galaxy there is but 1 galaxy out of more than 200billion galaxies in the observable universe.

That is like 1 grain of sand in a whole desert.

Long before humans never knew our galaxy was not alone, we thought we were and science hypothesized about other galaxies they called it Island universes

Not until in the early 1900s did a young Astronomer Edwin Hubble (Hubble telescope named after him) confirmed using the Mount Wilson that a distant nebulae was indeed an island universe (Distinct galaxy from ours) this nebulae is known now as the Andromeda galaxy More than 2million light years away.

thus humanity found out our galaxy wasn't the only one and now we find the number of galaxies not only reach up to 10 or 100 but billions of these gigantic monsters.



This image is a hubble deep field image, achieved when the hubble telescope is faced at one blank dark part of space for days or weeks, the result shows massive numerous distant galaxies.


every dot of light in this image is an individual galaxy, there are more 10,000 in this one image alone

16 Likes 4 Shares

Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by boman2014: 11:41pm On May 19, 2016
i just love science

5 Likes 1 Share

Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by johnydon22(m): 11:58pm On May 19, 2016
Size

Ok galaxies are really huge, there are dwarf ones but still galaxies are very huge to us. Being a gravitational wedlock of billions of stars, billions of planet, stellar dusts, clouds, gases, dark matter, it gets real big.

The milky way galaxy is on average very large though there are some galaxies that dwarfs it big time in terms of sheer size.

but it is large, up to 120,000,000 light years in diameter and up to 12,000 in thickness.

Light is the fastest thing known to man, in fact as far as we know the fastest thing in nature, now imagine this.

If the milky way galaxy was a football field, it'd take light up to 120million years to travel from one goal post to the other.

Uuuhm lets get a little bit closer home, the earth is really big right, yeah it is now scale this. If the earth was the size of an atom (only seen with with a microscope) then the milky way galaxy is the size of the united state of America.

That's just how large it is


Consider the picture below, Our SUN and the entire Solar system are not actually anymore than the small dot in the picture.

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Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by Talk2bryant(m): 2:16am On May 20, 2016
please continue
Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by Immorttal: 6:20am On May 20, 2016
Highly Enlightening.


Frontpage material.
Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by kolajamesjnr(m): 6:47am On May 20, 2016
Make i park well, i wish the mods will push this to front page
Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by johnydon22(m): 7:48am On May 20, 2016
It hasn't always being that big

So the milky way at the starting point of it's evolution hasn't always being this big, it has been averagely small.

then how did it get this big?

By preying on other smaller galaxies. There are lots and lots of galaxies in the universe all swirling around in a dance of gravitational music, so there is bound to be random collisions all around.

Massive galaxies can pull in smaller galaxies gravitationally and finally they collide and merge and the galaxy becomes bigger.

this was exactly how the Milky Way became bigger, by preying on smaller galaxies accumulating more and more galaxies and gets bigger.

The latest of it's prey is The Carnis Major Dwarf Galaxy whose stars are slowly being drifted into the Milky Way galaxy, soon the entire galaxy will be merged with the milky way and it will become even bigger.

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Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by johnydon22(m): 8:00am On May 20, 2016
It has up to 200 billion stars

As galaxies go, the Milky Way is a middleweight. The largest galaxy we
know of, which is the monsterous IC 1101 , has over 100 trillion stars, and other
large galaxies can have as many as a trillion.

Dwarf galaxies such as the aforementioned Large Magellanic Cloud have about 10 billion stars.

The Milky Way has between 100-400 billion stars; but when you look up into
the night sky, the most you can see from any one point on the globe is
about 2,500.

This number is not fixed, however, because the Milky Way is
constantly losing stars through supernovae, and producing new ones all the
time

4 Likes 1 Share

Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by johnydon22(m): 8:50am On May 20, 2016
it has up to 50 satellite galaxies

A satellite is a celestial object in orbit around another of similar attributes. . Planetary objects around other planetary objects are called Moons.

Big Galaxies also have satellites (smaller galaxies) in orbit around them...

An orbit is formed by gravitational interference from a body of larger mass on a celestial body in a straight motion.

The Milky way galaxy hosts up to 50 small galaxies in orbit around it of which it devours some of them little by little.

1 Like

Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by OneManLegion(m): 10:20am On May 20, 2016
Highly enlightening. Well done, Johnydon22.

1 Like

Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by johnydon22(m): 10:23am On May 20, 2016
On a collision Course

Yeah yell!!! shout and freak out but it's true. The milky way is on a head on collision course with the Largest of it's neighbours The famous great Andromeda Galaxy.

The Milky way may bully and swallow some miniature galaxies around it but for a galaxy like Andromeda bigger than the Milky way it is a different story.

Everything in the universe is in constant motion, the motion Course of both the Milky way and the Andromeda puts both Large galaxies on a direct collision Course.

Approximately 4billion years from now.

So don't worry, you'd not be there to see it.....



They both will merge and form a more larger gigantic Galaxy called Milkdromeda

The Andromeda galaxy at more than 2million light years away can be seen with the naked eye right here on earth, typically the farthest thing seen with the earths from earth, you might need a good powerful telescope to distinguish it or you'll just mistake it as a star.


This is what our night sky would look like in 3.7 billion years from now when the Andromeda is as close to us as like on our door step..

6 Likes 1 Share

Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by Geofavor(m): 10:34am On May 20, 2016
I like the way you're updating it gradually.
Sweeeeeeet! smiley
Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by hahn(m): 10:47am On May 20, 2016
It was created by god grin

2 Likes

Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by chacoonder(m): 10:50am On May 20, 2016
SCIENCE is BEAUTIFUL.....@johny..good job.
Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by johnydon22(m): 11:01am On May 20, 2016
It is littered with blackholes

This one is even more scary, it is canon that a massive blackhole trillions of times more massive than the sun resides deep in the center of the galaxy but that is not so bad, the bad news is the Galaxy is literally crawling with these unseen monsters.

Blackholes litter the galaxy in billions.

What is a blackhole?

[b]A blackhole is usually formed when a massive star dies, Once the dying
star has cast off it's star stuff in a supernova. The core- is no longer held in
check by nuclear process- collapses under it's own weight.

More like a well of infinite gravity that sucks everything up and nearly nothing (matter) can escape.

Read More on black holes ---> Here <---

Since blackholes are mostly invisible only detected through gravitational lensing or behaviour of matter around it.

It may be right on the corridor of the Solar System without us even knowing and that is a real BadAsss..

2 Likes

Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by Nobody: 12:11pm On May 20, 2016
Twinkle Twinkle little star
How I wonder what you are
Up above the sky so high

Like a Dia- oh sh!t it's a galaxy shockedshockedshocked grin




One question though; what do you call the space between galaxies

12 Likes

Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by UncleSnr(m): 1:11pm On May 20, 2016
SirWere:
Twinkle Twinkle little star

How I wonder what you are

Up above the sky so high


Like a Dia- oh sh!t it's a galaxy shockedshockedshocked grin





One question though; what do you call the space between galaxies
Voids

And what fills it?

http://hubblesite.org/explore_astronomy/hubbles_universe_unfiltered/blogs/qna-what-fills-the-empty-space-between-galaxies
Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by dorox(m): 1:23pm On May 20, 2016
SirWere:
Twinkle Twinkle little star

How I wonder what you are

Up above the sky so high


Like a Dia- oh sh!t it's a galaxy shockedshockedshocked grin






One question though; what do you call the space between galaxies

Inter galactic space I guess.
Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by tartar9(m): 1:47pm On May 20, 2016
Hope this doesn't enter fp

1 Like

Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by Nobody: 2:58pm On May 20, 2016
Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by dorox(m): 3:02pm On May 20, 2016
SirWere:
How does light get through then
It is technically a vacuum, which means that photons can travel through unhindered.
Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by Nobody: 3:11pm On May 20, 2016
dorox:

It is technically a vacuum, which means that photons can travel through unhindered.

Err the article I read said Dark Matter makes up this "voids" and Dark matter bends light so........
Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by ValentineMary(m): 3:20pm On May 20, 2016
johnydon22:
It is littered with blackholes

This one is even more scary, it is canon that a massive blackhole trillions of times more massive than the sun resides deep in the center of the galaxy but that is not so bad, the bad news is the Galaxy is literally crawling with these unseen monsters.

Blackholes litter the galaxy in billions.

What is a blackhole?

[b]A blackhole is usually formed when a massive star dies, Once the dying
star has cast off it's star stuff in a supernova. The core- is no longer held in
check by nuclear process- collapses under it's own weight.

More like a well of infinite gravity that sucks everything up and nearly nothing (matter) can escape.

Read More on black holes ---> Here <---

Since blackholes are mostly invisible only detected through gravitational lensing or behaviour of matter around it.

It may be right on the corridor of the Solar System without us even knowing and that is a real BadAsss..

But black holes can't swallow us in with it's great gravitational force unless we are at it's event horizon. Nice one though. Feeling it
Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by dorox(m): 3:59pm On May 20, 2016
SirWere:


Err the article I read said Dark Matter makes up this "voids" and Dark matter bends light so........






Dark matter from what I have read is concetrated in areas that have normal matter such as galaxies. But even if this is not the case, dark matter does not seem to have any interaction with photons, hence the name dark matter.
Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by taurus25(m): 8:44pm On May 20, 2016
tartar9:
Hope this doesn't enter fp
why?
Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by johnydon22(m): 9:33pm On May 20, 2016
Its an extremely Old Galaxy

The most recent estimates place the age of the Universe at about 13.7
billion years.

Our Milky Way has been around for about 13.6 billion of those
years, give or take another 800 million.

The oldest stars in our the Milky Way are found in globular clusters, and the age of our galaxy is determined by measuring the age of these stars, and then extrapolating the age of what preceded them.

Though some of the constituents of the Milky Way have been around for a
long time, the disk and bulge themselves didn’t form until about 10-12
billion years ago. And that bulge may have formed earlier than the rest of
the galaxy.

[img]http://www.bu.edu/today/files/2010/12/GalacticStratigraphy_h.jpg[/img]
Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by Psylas(m): 10:25pm On May 20, 2016
Wow, I was here

2 Likes

Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by johnydon22(m): 5:33pm On May 21, 2016
It's a Spiral galaxy

Yes the Milky way is not stationary either within itself or on the inter galactic vacuum of space.

Not withstanding that it is racing towards the Andromeda galaxy, the milky way Galaxy also is spinning within itself.

It's arms are spinning and orbiting the galactic center.

Our Sun and the entire Solar System is on the Orions Arm of the Galaxy and of course is also swirling around the Galactic center with the rest of the Orions arm other parts of the galaxy.

From the position of the Sun and Solar system in the Galaxy it takes it about ±250million years to complete one orbit around the galaxy.

The last time the Solar system was in this exact position in the galaxy, the Dinosaurs still ruled the earth.

4 Likes 2 Shares

Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by johnydon22(m): 5:34pm On May 21, 2016
Cc. Lalasticlala, mynd44 do the needful

1 Like 1 Share

Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by johnydon22(m): 5:42pm On May 21, 2016
You have never seen an external picture of the milky way


This is embarrassing, we have not and cannot yet take picture of the Milky way from outside.

The Milky galaxy is way too big, man have not achieved inter galactic travel yet so can not take a picture of what the Milky way galaxy looks like from the outside.

All the pictures of the Milky way you see are actually that of Other galaxies speculated to look similar to the Milky way or CGI artist impressions using available data and facts.

The only actual images of the milky galaxy you must have seen are that of the Milky way band taken from earth, only showing a mesh of clustered light running through the sky.


Picture of the milky way band in the earth's sky, mostly visible in the northern and southern pole of the planet.

11 Likes 2 Shares

Re: Facts About The Milky Way Galaxy (with Photos) by taurus25(m): 7:15pm On May 21, 2016
johnydon22:
You have never seen an external picture of the milky way


This is embarrassing, we have not and cannot yet take picture of the Milky way from outside.

The Milky galaxy is way too big, man have not achieved inter galactic travel yet so can not take a picture of what the Milky way galaxy looks like from the outside.

All the pictures of the Milky way you see are actually that of Other galaxies speculated to look similar to the Milky way or CGI artist impressions using available data and facts.

The only actual images of the milky galaxy you must have seen are that of the Milky way band taken from earth, only showing a mesh of clustered light running through the sky.


Picture of the milky way band in the earth's sky, mostly visible in the northern and southern pole of the planet.
why is it so rare to get this view of the night sky around this part of the world........An abosolute beauty

5 Likes 2 Shares

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